"What! a lady like you? Don't you keep servants? For Jim said the place was like a palace!"
"We keep one servant only, and a gardener. Mamma thinks it right that every one should learn to be useful."
"But if I was rich I wouldn't do a thing! I actually wouldn't."
"I am afraid you would soon get tired of idleness."
"O, I'd have books, and read, and paint pictures, and a pianny—"
"Piano," corrected Kathie, gravely, as if she had been a teacher with her class.
Sarah turned scarlet, then gave a little embarrassed laugh. "I never can get the words all right. They do plague me so; but I haven't been to school for two years. Mother wanted me home, for Martha was so little. That's why I'd like to be a lady, and know just what was right to do and say. I thought you was so elegant that night!"
"There are a great many 'ladies,' as you call them, much poorer than you; and some rich people who are coarse and ignorant."
"There ain't only two or three men in Middleville any richer than father. He owns sights of land and timber, but he thinks that if you can read and write and cipher a little it is enough. I don't suppose I could ever be as nice as you are, though,"—with a sadness in her tone and a longing in her eyes.
"In what respect?" Kathie smiled encouragingly.